


Poorly Calibrated

by hilarychuff



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Dealing With Loss, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-13
Updated: 2014-01-13
Packaged: 2018-01-08 14:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1133773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hilarychuff/pseuds/hilarychuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma Simmons has to learn to recalibrate her life after losing a member of the team. Subtle BioSpecialist and FitzSimmons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poorly Calibrated

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written as a Secret Santa present for tumblr user aching-for-distance.tumblr.com based on the prompts "Jemma or Leo is transferred to another team for at least a few months." and the Rascal Flatt's song My Wish.

It’s been a while she’s since seen them all – she’s not sure exactly how long, although she really should be. Fitz’s accident had been eight months and thirteen days ago, she can remember nearly to the minute how long it’s been, but the rest of them – she’s not sure when the last time she saw them was. 

The first few weeks after Fitz’s accident had been a blur – for everyone, she supposed. Everyone had dealt with it differently, bottling and unbottling emotions at will, but no one had really expected Jemma to – to recoil so strongly. Or maybe they had. She couldn’t remember much of it, really. The team had been given some time off after and she’d spent the most of it in her little cubby of a room, pressed tight against the wall at the far side of her tiny bed, as if touching anything might make the ghost of him, the ghost of his memory really, snake out from his cubby just on the other side of the far wall, slither underneath the door, reach its tendrils for her on the bed – 

They all tended to turn into themselves when things were difficult and she’d never really noticed before that Fitz had been the one to draw them out, or at least start the chain reaction that did it. Without Fitz, Jemma felt… strange and disconnected and off, somehow, as if her perception of herself had become calibrated improperly, her body a centimeter to the left from herself. The bus, still suffocatingly small, felt entirely too large without him. The lab alone was crushing in its mess of empty space. 

They’d let her take some time at home. The rest of the team had continued on without her – without them. She’d packed most of her things and returned to her parents’ house, leaving behind some pictures and a few infrequently worn clothing items so no one would realize just yet that when she left, she left. Skye had known anyway and she’d been the first person to visit, bringing a stuffed animal and sweets and movies to watch and the two had lied on Jemma’s queen-sized bed all evening and stared at the ceiling. 

Agent Coulson had caught on next and come to visit, bringing the rest of her things with her. They’d had a nice enough visit, she assumed – she remembered tea in a little café she’d never been to before but not much of anything he’d said, only the look on his face. He’d hugged her when he’d left, holding tight for just a second too long, but right as she was about to settle into the hug properly he’d let go. 

May had sent a card, which had been more than Jemma might’ve expected from the woman. Her mum had brought it up, setting it on her desk with a “Look what you’ve gotten, from one of your old teammates – isn’t that nice, dear?” It had been only six words, but the frank “Sorry. Come back when you’re ready.” had said plenty. Jemma tucked it away in a drawer so she wouldn’t have to look at it. 

From Agent Ward, there’d been nothing but silence. She’d almost have been upset, but that felt too much like betraying Leo’s memory and so she felt nothing instead. 

After another few months, she’s back at work – at the Hub, now, working with a small collection of fellow scientists, mostly other biochemists who’d shared similar theses in the Academy. They called her Jemma there – being Simmons felt too much like being half of FitzSimmons, and though it had taken her a while to get used to the switch, to going by her first name even in a professional capacity, it only felt wise. 

One day the team brings the bus by the Hub. They’ve got some sort of special mission that they’ve got to prepare for or something mysterious – her clearance isn’t high up enough for her to know and she doesn’t ask. They’ll be around for a day or two, though, maybe three if prep takes longer than they’re hoping. She makes plans for dinner with Skye and another tea with Coulson. She doesn’t expect it, though, when Agent Ward drops by the lab she shares with the collection (she never calls them a team – she’s not sure she wants another team). 

“Simmons,” he says, and she winces instantly at the name. It’s a harsh reminder of who they both are and she forces herself to swallow, plaster on a smile when she looks up. 

“Agent Ward,” she answers, and she’s not sure what to follow it up with. She wants to be polite and say it’s lovely to see him and maybe a small part of her thinks it is, but another larger part won’t allow the words out of her mouth. “Have they sent you to us for something for your mission, then? Agent Hand hasn’t briefed us on anything yet.”

He’s caught the attention of some of the members of the collection and two of them look up to watch the exchange. They don’t often get visitors in the lab, and when it’s a visitor as handsome as Ward it’s hard to overlook. 

“No, I just thought I’d stop by and see – Have you eaten yet?” He cuts himself off halfway and starts on a new thread. It’s not hard to see where it’s going but she tightens the plaster smile even as her stomach twists. 

“No, I haven’t.”

“Can you spare thirty minutes to get lunch with an old team member?”

One of the members of the collection – Cauldwell – looks up again, because Jemma never really talks about her old team, and Jemma can feel Cauldwell’s gaze burning on the back of her lab coat. She ignores it and nods sharply. 

“I suppose I can take a break.”

That’s how she finds herself in the Hub’s cafeteria, tucked to one side of the large room, sitting in a booth across from Agent Grant Ward. He looks the same, mostly. Maybe a little more tired, a little older, but she’s not sure if that’s an accurate read or if she’s only projecting. It hasn’t been long enough for either of them to have visibly aged significantly, at least not according to their projected skin plasticity, stress levels, smoking habits – she cuts off the train of thought when he starts speaking, and she realizes only once he’s talking that she hasn’t said anything yet and they must’ve been sitting there in silence for a minute or more. 

“When you left the team –” Jemma tenses immediately, but channels it down into her legs tucked underneath the table, letting the tightness curl in her calves, her toes. She’d known this would be the conversation they’d have, but she supposes she’d expected him to ease into it, start with small talk. “– I wanted to come talk to you and bring you back. I understood isolating yourself at first, to process – I thought it was right that you take some time off. But I thought it was stupid that you quit and I was going to come to your house and tell you that. The only reason I didn’t was because Coulson thinks you need to realize it on your own – you need to realize what you want, what you’re missing. I thought maybe you had when Skye hacked the system and saw you were active in SHIELD again, but then you were here at the Hub in a lab instead of on the Bus and – Coulson said you’d come to it on your own. So I waited again.”

He pauses here, as if to let Jemma jump in and say something, but he’s given her plenty of opportunities to interrupt throughout the entirety of his speech so far and still she’s quiet, so he continues. 

“But it’s been months and you’re still here, in this lab at the Hub. Coulson thinks you need to realize on your own what you want, but I’m tired of waiting – we all are. You never wanted to be just another scientist in a lab, Simmons – you never wanted to be just in a lab. You got on the Bus in the first place for a reason. You left your lab at the Academy for a reason, and it wasn’t just because of Fitz because you could’ve gone anywhere and you know he would’ve followed.”

No one’s said his name to her in months and it’s a painful realization that she desperately misses the sound of it. She misses him, any trace of him – and the rest of them too. But being on the Bus as just half – 

“I don’t know if I can be there.” It’s only half of what she means to say but the rest of the words stick so she lets herself trail off before she looks up at him. 

He’s watching her carefully and he reaches out across the table to brush his knuckles across hers when the words fail. It’s plenty. 

“Maybe Coulson’s right – you need to realize you want it on your own. But I know you have bigger dreams than just being another scientist at the Hub, and the Bus needs you. Think about it, alright?”

This time when she smiles it’s almost genuine and her hands uncurl from fists until she can stretch her fingertips out to touch his. 

“Alright.”


End file.
